Let Us Pen These Truths
by Vampiyaa
Summary: Twelve/Rose AU; Part Twelve of the Forever and More series. An awkward clock maker and secretly aspiring poet stumbles upon a young blonde woman with no memory whatsoever and is forced to take her in, only to discover she might just be his muse.
1. Appraise the Valour and Fearless Tell

**Beta: natural-blues**

* * *

Chapter 1

Appraise the Valour and Fearless Tell

_The last night sky of the August lush_

_Rescinding songs of summer's turn_

_The capering leaves begin to blush_

_All errant hours for nightfall yearn_

_A-comes the windfall's silent hush_

_An ending shudder to discern_

John Smith poised his pen on the next line, frowning when he couldn't think of what to write next. Cursing to himself in a way that would have his Catholic, god-fearing mother turning in her grave, he raised his head from the parchment and looked through the small circular window. He didn't have much of a view in his tiny house and simultaneous clock store. The shop was divided into three areas — the very front was the store, the surrounding rooms were his bedroom and his kitchen and in the corner was the backroom, where he resided most of the time, scribbling poetry at his work desk or on the couch in front of the fireplace. The front of the shop overlooked nothing but the London street and the blacksmith's shop across, but the backroom looked upon a small stretch of field with a faraway mountain in the background and a single, lone, crooked tree in the very centre. John stared hard at the tree in what little light the setting sun and his dripping candle gave him, and tried hard to gather inspiration from it. He dipped his dried pen into his inkwell and began scribbling again.

_Within the veil of foliage shade_

_The chattering fauna lie to rest_

_Within the flaming dried brocade _

_Prepares the full for winter's test_

_A-fore the fluttering icy braid_

_That fogg'd the skyline north to west_

John set down his pen with a heavy sigh, only half-satisfied. As proud as he was of the last two verses, it still felt horridly incomplete. He flicked his eyes between the window and one of the many elegant, wood-carved ticking clocks on the walls, mantles and shelves. It was only half after seven, although as the sun was already setting and the autumn solstice was approaching there was a distinct nip in the air, so John blew out his candle, grabbed his raggedy blue overcoat from the chair near the display shelves and strode out of his shop. Upon strolling onto the street, he spotted Mr. Copper sitting on his front porch tending to his azaleas; John gave a curt nod that wasn't returned with anything but a frown. He remained unperturbed, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets and striding through the alley towards the countryside. The only time Mr. Copper had ever been in a good enough mood to so much as glance in John's direction without any condescendence in his gaze was Christmas day twelve years ago, when it had snowed for the first time in ages.

It wasn't just Mr. Copper either— John knew for a fact the man was a usually good-natured, borderline ecstatic gentleman. Ever since he was a child back in Scotland, he'd seen that look in his direction. He couldn't exactly blame them. John was the type of person who seemed stoic, almost cold at first glance, which was usually the first thing that put people off about him— up until they discovered his peculiar tendency to belt out snippets of his poetry in conversation, his affinity for taking long walks at all hours, in all weather, and his unfortunate habit of getting overly excited whenever he spotted something muse-worthy. It'd been this way, all the way back when he was a lad in school in the colony of Lungbarrow. He was known as that unusual child in the front of the class who seemingly had no emotions at first, up until he saw a bird perched on the windowsill and started scribbling excitedly to the point where he slopped ink all over himself.

He grimaced as he strolled without direction down a rubble path next to a mountain and a stretch of forest, remembering the time where he once tried to woo his longstanding child-love Romana with a stretch of poetry. It wasn't even a bad poem — as good as a child of eight could have conjured — but Romana, being concerned with naught but finding a wealthy husband in the future and increasing her social status, not only turned him down with a condescending look, she did so before all of their classmates. Even now, at five and fifty years old, it still made his ears and cheeks burn. It was the first of many follies with women, until he began to outright avoid them entirely— far too much of a nuisance. Besides, he was content being in solitude with only his thoughts and poetry for company. And his clocks.

John paused for a moment to toss back his head and breathe in the scent of the air. Each season had a meticulous scent, but his particular favourites were autumn and winter. Winter always had a crisp, fresh scent that he enjoyed despite hating the cold with a passion, but autumn had the sweet perfume of leaves and earth, especially after the sun set. He paused, tearing a folded parchment covered with notes and a charcoal pencil and scribbling down his previous thoughts, already thinking gleefully of how to turn that into a poem.

A rustling noise in the field beside him made him jump so violently he made a long charcoal line through all of his notes. Stuffing his parchment and his pencil back into his pocket, John whirled around and faced the tall grass, feeling slightly apprehensive.

"Hello?" he called out tentatively, not approaching the grass as he realised that it was a perfect hiding place for things that wanted to maul people to death.

More rustling was his only reply, and it seemed to be getting nearer. He'd never been a particularly jumpy person but he took a step back nonetheless, readying himself to fight or flee depending on what came out.

Apparently neither was required, since the only thing that stumbled out was a haggard and dazed-looking woman. Her dress was in tatters, as was her travelling cloak, and her skin was caked with dirt. John's stomach lurched when he spotted, underneath a slightly tangled curtain of pale blonde hair, a gigantic gash covered over with dried blood.

He gasped, hurrying forward when she started to fall and catching her quickly. He ignored his built-in urge to run from any and every attractive woman (and this woman went beyond the mere word _attractive_) and lowered her to the ground, propping her up against his chest. "Madame? Are you all right?"

"Fine," she mumbled. "Just a bit dizzy."

"You hit your head," he explained, straining to keep her upright.

"I did?"

He nodded, but her eyes were closed so he said, "Yes. Do you remember what happened?"

She paused, brows furrowing together. "Don't remember anythin'."

"What's your name?" he asked.

Her frowned deepened. "Don't remember."

John emulated her frown and opened his mouth to question her further, but suddenly she slumped all of her weight onto him and he had to scramble so she didn't collapse. He curved his arms underneath her and picked her up, wincing — she wasn't heavy, but he wasn't exactly youthful — and he started down the path. It was harder to manoeuvre down the path now, since it was dark and he was carrying an unconscious woman, but somehow he managed to get off of the untamed stone path and onto the lamp-lit street. John entertained the notion of taking her to the physician, but her head wound looked urgent and the physician was all the way across the city, so he readjusted his grip on her and headed towards home. He hoped nobody spotted him— the last thing he need atop the already towering pile of rumours about him was another one stating that he'd bludgeoned and abducted a young woman.

Keeping his back to Mr. Copper's house in case the man was peering through his curtains at him, John pushed open the door with his knee and made a beeline for his chesterfield in the backroom, swearing as quietly as he could when he bashed his knee on the edge of a display case. He laid her down on it, pulling off her travelling cloak and draping it over whatever was nearest. John fumbled in his pockets for his spare box of matches and lit a couple of candles and the fire in the grate, bathing the tiny room in an orange glow. Tossing the matches onto the mantle, John propped the woman's head up with a pillow before hurrying into his cellar, fetching a bucket and pumping water into it. Grabbing a spare cloth, John hurried back into the backroom, dipped the cloth into the water and cleaned away the blood slowly. She whimpered at the cold against her wound but didn't wake, and he wished he had time to boil the water to make it warmer for her— if not for her wound, then for a bath later on. He'd do that later, he decided, and continued to clean the wound.

John, upon his parents' wishes before they died, had studied to become a doctor for a while before deciding he'd rather spend his life doing something he wanted rather than what everyone else wanted him to do. He still remembered most of his training, which is why, when all the blood was cleared away, the head wound struck him as odd. It didn't look like she'd hit it— it looked more like a clean gash made by a knife. It wasn't too deep and wouldn't require any stitching, but it still looked suspicious. John immediately checked all of her pockets, which were all empty save for nigh useless things like a handkerchief, a hair ribbon and a small scrap of paper, confirming his theory— she'd probably been mugged. She must have rolled down the hill afterwards, which would account for the dirt. Frowning, John dipped the cloth back into the now slightly pink water and folded it, placing it on her forehead.

He stood with the notion in mind to fetch more water and boil it so she could bathe later, but she stirred at once and opened her eyes, zeroing in on him. She bolted forward at once with a terrified gasp, the cloth collapsing into her lap, and she winced in pain almost immediately, clutching at her head.

"Lay back down, you're going to hurt yourself," he almost snapped, making her flinch. He tried to tamp down the tension in him and said, in a gentler voice, "You need to rest. You were attacked not far from here and fell down the hill."

"Who are you?" she demanded, voice cracking.

"John Smith," he said, trying hard not to blush when he realised was the first time a woman, let alone one this beautiful even while caked in dirt, had been in his house beyond the clock shop. "Who are _you_?"

"I… I don't remember." Her face blanched, pale even in the orange glow from the candles and the fireplace. "I don't know who I am, I don't—"

"Calm yourself, Madame," he said, taking care not to snap at her.

"But why can't I remember who I am?!" she all but wailed, wringing her hands.

"It's called amnesia," he explained gently. "It's not unknown. Perhaps in time you'll get your memories back."

"But I don't even know my own name," she whispered, sounding so vulnerable it made him pity her.

"Perhaps there's a clue as to what your name is somewhere," he suggested.

She seemed to relax a little bit, plunging her hands immediately into her pockets and pulling out the handkerchief, the hair ribbon and the paper that John had found earlier. She held up the handkerchief first, and her face sparked with hope. "It says 'Rose'."

"An embroidered handkerchief," John said, taking it from her and holding it up to the light. He frowned at how expensive it was, in comparison to her ratty peasant gown— come to think of it, her travelling cloak was very upper class as well.

As he inspected the handkerchief, she looked at the paper and frowned at it. "It's blank," she said, a little regretfully.

"Well, at least we know your name is Rose," supplied John, before taking the wet cloth from her lap. "I'll draw you a bath, if you wish. Rest for now."

Rose nodded, giving him a warm smile that he'd never seen from a woman before— at least, not pointed in his direction. "Thank you, John Smith," she said gratefully, settling down obediently.

He felt his whole face burn crimson, as though he were a fumbling adolescent instead of a fully grown man, and he grumbled out something that might have passed for a 'you're welcome' and fled the room at once to start on her bath. While he pumped water into a giant bucket to hang over the fire later, he slopped half of it onto his front, cursing at himself and the Lord for steering this woman in his direction. Not only would he later have to scour the city for anybody who might know her, but she was also going to be _naked _soon. In his house. That was definitely going to be another first. And, he mused with another gigantic blush, he'd have to offer her his bed. So in the same night he was going to have a naked woman in his house, and said woman in his bed.

When he hauled the bucket upstairs, he steadfastly avoided looking at the chesterfield while he hung the bucket over the fireplace. Curiosity got the better of him for the briefest of moments and he glanced over to her, only to feel slightly relieved when he saw she was asleep again. As he prepared her bath, hauling bucket after bucket of water upstairs to boil and then pouring into his metal bathtub, he tried hard not to make too much noise so as not to rouse her. When the tub was full and he'd set aside some towels for her, he swallowed down his old awkward habits and approached her, hesitating before placing his hand on her shoulder and gently rousing her. Her eyes fluttered open, lashes seeming to stroke the air, the light from the fireplace making her eyes twinkle.

_With blossoming light from fires brash_

_The shadowed branches a-rise from ash_

_Long fingers reach to caress and steal_

_A rosebud blooms in nightly appeal_

"Hmm?" Rose mumbled, sitting up and frowning at him as John practically threw himself over to his workbench, tearing out his charcoal pencil and scribbling furiously. "What is it?"

"What?" he almost snapped, looking up from his paper for the briefest second as though he'd forgotten she existed. "Er, right— your bath is ready."

"Thank you," she said gratefully, sitting up properly again. Then her face blushed orange in the firelight, prompting yet another snippet of poetry to unfurl in his mind. As he turned back to his paper and began scribbling at once, she said with a voice laced with embarrassment, "What shall I wear after?"

He couldn't help but emulate her blush, nearly dropping his pencil— he hadn't thought of that. "Er…" _Damn_, what could she wear? "I suppose you can, er, wear something of mine until morn," he said, steadily avoiding looking at her since he was certain he'd catch fire. So now he was going to have a naked woman in his house and in his bed, _and _she'd be wearing his clothing. Wonderful.

She didn't seem perturbed, more relieved by the look on her face. After thanking him yet again, she stepped into the other room — his bedroom — where the tub was waiting for her. After setting aside some of his clothing on the bed for her, feeling like he was signing away his life and sanity, he stayed hidden in the backroom, pretending to write despite there being nobody to fool. How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation? Now he was going to have to close the shop and help her search for her family later. He was not a good companion to anybody — let alone to a beautiful woman — and he was certainly not a good host.

The ticking of the multiple clocks started to lull him to sleep, nearly nodding off on his papers. The sounds of ticking had always relaxed him, made it easier to work or write poems. John rubbed his face, gathering up his notes and parchment and putting them in a drawer before regretfully standing up and slinking over to the couch. Although the couch was stiff, the fire was warm against his face and the scent of autumn and sugary brook water clung to the cushions, probably from Rose— despite himself he buried his nose in it, inhaling deeply and letting the scent and the clocks lull him to sleep.

* * *

He had dreams of lying in a field underneath a shivering tree, fiery leaves dislodging from the branches and fluttering around his face. When he woke up, the late morning sun was shining right in his face and the house was bitter cold. He shivered, sitting up and straightening his rumpled clothing before standing up and heading towards the fireplace. The fire had long gone out, but the embers were still smouldering, so John placed a couple of logs and old parchment to get it going again before standing up and stretching. He'd have to go out before she woke up and get her some clothes; his face burned again when he pictured her in his clothing, curled up in his sheets and making his pillows smell like sweet leaves again.

John crept over to the bathtub so as not to wake her, picking up her filthy gown from the ground, grabbing his jacket again, scribbling a note for her in case she woke early and heading out the door. He gave yet another nod to a disapproving Mr. Copper and headed straight for the local tailor, presenting the dress and asking him for a few more in the same size along with (he nearly died when he had to ask the tailor) female under things. They were more than a little expensive, but John had never really indulged on anything besides parchment, ink and various pens so he wasn't particularly perturbed. As glad as he was that Rose wouldn't have to walk around in either his clothes or her near destroyed dress, he was immensely uncomfortable walking back with three new dresses on his arm and the bag full of… other garments. Mr. Copper gave him more than just an odd look, and John mentally cursed to himself, remarking how by tomorrow morn the entire city would be spluttering rumours about him.

John set the bags down temporarily on the display cases in the front of the store, wondering what he could make for breakfast for the both of them, since his stomach was growling and he was pretty certain hers would be too. John then set the kettle, deciding on standard, cinnamon-sweetened oatmeal and tea before circling the display.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he entered the backroom and spotted a bleary-looking Rose in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and looking a bit silly with her ruffled hair and male clothing three sizes too big for her. They stared at each other for a full minute, before John flushed crimson and he said stoically, "Er, did you sleep well?" She smiled sleepily, nodding. "Erm, good. Right. These are for you," he added abruptly, thrusting the dresses and the bag in her direction. She looked startled at first, glancing between the gowns and his flaming face. "You can, er, get changed in the other room."

She nodded, still looking a bit stunned as she turned back into his bedroom. While Rose changed, he put the tub back into the closet and tended to the now merrily crackling fire. He nearly choked on his own breath when Rose emerged into the backroom again, looking considerably happier in a simple pale pink lace gown and her hair tied up with the hair ribbon.

"It fits!" she said brightly, twirling a bit.

He snapped his mouth shut with a click and glared at the fire instead of her. "Er, yes, evidently." Clearing his throat and staring at his shoes he said gruffly, "After breakfast we'll head to the physicians to check out your head wound."

"Will he be able to bring back my memories?" she said hopefully, following him into the kitchen.

He busied himself with the kettle as she waited for an answer, desperately wondering what he could possibly say to her. With his knowledge of the human brain (or what he remembered of it, anyway) he was certain he couldn't give her an answer that could spare her feelings, so he said vaguely, "Perhaps," and then immediately felt awful for lying, especially when her face lit up. "Eat your breakfast," he said at once, the words sounding a little bit to sharp to his own ears, but Rose merely beamed at him and accepted the bowl of oatmeal and the cup of tea.

After they ate, he made her put on one of his raggedy old coats to ward off the near-autumn chill, and upon practically drilling her like a sergeant to make absolutely certain she was all right to walk, they exited the house, John offering his arm in a gentlemanly way. Mr. Copper was sitting on his porch again in his rocking chair, and John steadfastly avoided eye contact with him this time, especially since Mr. Copper had glanced towards them and then snapped his head back for another look when he spotted Rose on John's arm.

Mr. Copper wasn't the only one who glanced at them twice. As John led Rose through the throng, past carriages and near-afternoon patrons, he was painfully aware of every eye in the crowd on him. Usually John could ignore the side-glances and whispers, but it was different than normal; it wasn't of contempt or disapproval, it was of astonishment and confusion. Rose was thankfully oblivious to everything, too interested, it seemed, in looking at everything to notice that nearly every person within a thirty metre radius was staring at her.

When he entered the physician's house a few blocks down, he felt the back of his neck heat up when he walked in and immediately spotted Harry Sullivan coming out of the sitting room. Under any other circumstance he would have chuckled, since Harry was holding a half-eaten buttered bread, looking astonished with crumbs covering his face, but his blue-grey eyes swivelled between John and Rose and an interested look appeared on his face.

"This is new, John," said Harry good-naturedly. Harry always the only person who treated John like he wasn't secretly a murderer, and John had always been grateful, but this was one instance when John wished Harry would ignore him and his 'new' friend. As John flushed crimson and pretended to be interested in an anatomical poster on the wall, Harry beamed at Rose and said, "Hello there, dear!"

"Hello," Rose replied with a shy smile, half-hiding behind John.

"Yes, well," John grumbled, flustered. "We're not here to fraternise."

Harry simply smiled at him good-naturedly but said with obedience, "Very well then."

Harry led them into the sitting room, which looked relatively like John's house save for a bag in the corner in the event that he had to bring his business to somebody's abode and physician's tools scattered occasionally on the end table. As Harry led Rose to the couch and began to examine her head, John hurriedly took out his parchment and charcoal and scribbled a quick phrase— '_Scattered tools of silver sleek_; _Trembling flesh the riggings seek'_. Harry ignored him, too focused on the cut on Rose's head, but Rose watched him curiously, and when he stuffed his parchment back into his pocket and noticed Rose's stare on him he flushed, staring hard at the ceiling and wishing she'd stop.

"Well, it isn't serious, dear," Harry said kindly. "You'll just need to rest up for a few days while it heals— you won't need any stitches."

"I know," said John gruffly, colour fading from his face despite Rose's never wavering gaze. "That isn't the problem."

"Then what is?" Harry frowned.

"She can't remember anything," John replied, and Harry gaped at her to the point where it was her turn to blush, looking almost ashamed of herself. "Nothing about her past, her family, not even her name. We only know her first name from an embroidered handkerchief we found in her pocket. I believe she was mugged."

Harry nodded contemplatively, giving Rose's shoulder a comforting pat as he did so. "That would correspond with her injury. A blow to the head coupled with psychological trauma could possibly lead to memory loss."

"Psychological trauma?" Rose asked.

"If you truly believed you were about to die when you were attacked, it might've been enough to make you forget everything about your past," Harry explained. "Although you'll still remember how to do basic things — dress yourself, speak, read, eat and make food, those sorts of things — all of your experiences are blocked."

"Is there any chance they'll come back?" Rose said hopefully.

He looked at her with pity clear in his eyes. "It's impossible to say. They may come back tomorrow, or perhaps in a year, or never at all."

Despite how kindly Harry had tried to say it, John couldn't help but glare at the man when Rose practically deflated on the couch, looking like Harry had just told her she had a month to live. Thanking Harry abruptly, who looked a little ashamed of himself, John pulled Rose up by her shoulders and led her out of the house, keeping one hand on her elbow as he steered her away. They walked in silence for a brief moment, and John felt desperately that he ought to say something, since her head was ducked so her hair was partially hiding her face (_Flaxen hair surrounds the yielding; Ashen skin the shutter shielding_) but before he could open his mouth — or pause to whip out his parchment to hastily jot down the snippet of poetry her posture had just inspired — she spoke.

"What if my memories never come back?" she whispered, in a voice so tiny and horrified it made John, widely known emotionless pillock, reach over and place both hands on her shoulders, although he hesitated clearly before doing it.

"Harry— er, Dr. Sullivan said there's as much chance of them coming back," John said earnestly, managing to ward off yet another blush as he stared steadily into her eyes. (_Almond eyes of endless pasting; Desert eyes of promise lasting_). "You oughtn't lose hope. Tomorrow we shall search for your family after you've rested."

She didn't answer beyond nodding but looked slightly cheered up, although John still felt like he was unsuccessful. They walked back to the house in silence, Rose's grip on his arm tight and her head lolling slightly on his shoulder; because of this he spent the entire walk uncomfortable and red-faced, especially when they passed Mr. Copper, who was glancing out the window and, when he spotted them, actually ushered his wife to the window to gawk as well. Thankfully, Rose once again left them unnoticed.

When they crossed the threshold, John suggested that she rest again. He whipped up a quick cuppa for her and a plate of biscuits to tide her over until dinnertime before sending her to her bedroom with the food. Once he was properly alone he sighed, casting a pitying glance at the doorway where Rose had disappeared. It was rare that he felt bad for anybody, but he truly could not imagine knowing naught about his past, forgetting his parents and being completely alone save for being shacked up with an asocial, grumpy old man.

John spent the majority of the afternoon tending to the only slightly tempered fire in the grate, taking Rose's old dress and washing it in the washbasin — which in itself took a good three hours to get all the caked mud and twigs off of it — and mending it with some fabric left in his mother's old sewing kit. The near-autumn sun set early, and as the store darkened John set a few candles before making a cuppa for himself, sitting on his workbench and taking out his parchment before carefully copying the snippets of poetry he'd gathered onto a cleaner, less rumpled piece of parchment and filing it away for later. Then he pulled out the poem he'd been working on before finding Rose and set it down next to his candle.

_The last night sky of the August lush_

_Rescinding songs of summer's turn_

_The capering leaves begin to blush_

_All errant hours for nightfall yearn_

_A-comes the windfall's silent hush_

_An ending shudder to discern_

_Within the veil of foliage shade_

_The chattering fauna lie to rest_

_Within the flaming dried brocade _

_Prepares the full for winter's test_

_A-fore the fluttering icy braid_

_That fogg'd the skyline north to west_

John dipped his pen into the inkwell and poised it underneath the last line, closing his eyes and trying to think back to the dream he'd had that morning of lazing beneath a shuddering autumn tree, the ground covered in near-winter frost. He inhaled deeply through his nose, so caught up in his own mind he didn't hear Rose enter the backroom until she placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke.

"What are you doing?"

He nearly jumped out of his shoes, whirling around so quickly he almost knocked his candle onto his parchment. Blushing faint orange, he grumbled vaguely, "Er, writing." Before she could ask any further he said hurriedly, "Are you hungry? It's near time for dinner."

She shook her head and said, clearly undeterred, "You were doing that at the physician's, and yesterday. What are you writing?"

"Poetry," he said, once again abundantly vague.

Rose took it upon herself to sit down next to him on the bench, craning her neck to see his parchment, head slightly touching his shoulder. He felt slightly uncomfortable— not just because she was practically snuggled into his side, but because whenever he'd share his poetry with people they'd always reject him in some form. Rose, however, simply smiled and said, "S'lovely."

"It isn't finished," he supplied modestly, feeling more than a little thrilled— did she really _like_ it?

"S'about autumn changing into winter, yeah?" When he nodded, she suggested, "What about frost? Y'know, like at the end of autumn when the ground's sort of powdered?" She paused, not noticing his shocked expression. "Wonder how I remembered that."

"But that's brilliant," he gasped.

She beamed. "Yeah?"

He nodded again, already scribbling fervently; Rose continued to read as he wrote.

A crystal dusting of diamond rain

_A spider's web spun upon the field _

_The Snow Queen's steps and trailing train_

_And leaves behind the autumn yield_

_A-rises the bitter scaffold stain_

_And blooms the solid adamant shield_

He finished with a flourish and a satisfied hum, turning to her and positively beaming, which Rose mirrored at once. "Excellent! Thank you, Rose!"

"You're welcome," she grinned, tongue peeking out at the corner of her mouth.

Ducking her head a bit at his never wavering smile — and the fact that he'd used her name for the first time since they discovered it — she stood from the bench and murmured a shy goodnight before returning to the bedroom. He watched her leave with a decidedly silly grin, eventually turning back to his paper and rereading it, more than happy with the outcome. He never would have expected that his amnesia-ridden houseguest would have inspired anything beyond discomfort and annoyingly common blushes. Blowing gently on the parchment so the ink dried before placing it with care in a drawer full of completed poems, John stood from the workbench and snuffed out his candle, no longer dreading tomorrow's plans of searching for her family.

* * *

**A/N: I apologise for how horribly late this is, but I had so much trouble writing Twelve :/ I know I said he was going to be a Reverend, but I changed it just because I couldn't seem to connect with the idea :/ I might write it in the future. Then I changed it to a futuristic AU, but I couldn't connect with that either ^^' So here's Twelve's (third) story! I did my best with Twelve's character, since we know legit nothing about him yet. This story will have three chapters :) All poetry in here is written by me; hope it's not too abhorrent :3 The chapter title is from a snippet I wrote years ago: "Appraise the valour and fearless tell; Oh, friends and soldiers, do wish us well!"  
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**This is the last independent story in the Forever and More series. Next in the series is an Ageless, Timeless sequel (for all you naughty people out there who wanted the smut scene ;D) and a sequel to Five Days (more smut!) Stay tuned ^^  
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	2. With Dusted Skies and a Jagged Rival

**Beta: natural-blues**

* * *

Chapter 2

With Dusted Skies and a Jagged Rival

The first morning Rose woke in John's bed, her head had ached from the knife wound and whatever blow she'd taken supposedly rolling down the hill. The next morning, post first ever smile John Smith had sent in her direction, Rose woke to twittering birds outside the window above her head, blankets warm from streaming sunlight. She stretched languidly, rubbing at her eyes and sitting up, straightening out her linen shift. The split second of peace bled out of her the moment she sleepily tried to remember what she'd been dreaming; Rose deflated at once, hanging her head a little and feeling lament seep through her. She couldn't even remember her own surname, her own parents, let alone a dream she'd had the night before. Well, she surmised to cheer herself up, at least she'd stumbled upon John Smith. Rose gripped his blankets between her fingers, smiling down at the loose threads. He was sweet, decidedly, and kind enough to let her be a burden despite his initial façade of gruffness, and regretfully lonely. Rose expected men his age to have a wife, perhaps a few children on the way to becoming adults. Maybe his wife had died long ago. Perchance she'd ask him.

Either way, his poetry was beautiful. Rose smiled a bit in remembrance of it— his writing style was elegant and was a window into his true self, no longer merely a brusque but secretly kind older man but an aspiring poet seeing the world through entirely different eyes, like the merest of things were the epitome of beauty in his opinion. She wondered why he'd been so reluctant to show her at first.

Deciding she'd ask him later, Rose pushed the blankets off of herself and sat up, shivering when her bare feet met cold wood. Heading over towards the washbasin in the corner, Rose splashed some lukewarm water on her face and used her fingers to comb out the tangles in her hair, before taking one of the dresses and walking behind the screen. She hugged it slightly, feeling gratitude bubble in her chest— her new dresses were just another example of John's veiled compassion. After dressing and curling her hair up in the ribbon again, Rose tiptoed from the bedroom and into the backroom.

John was literally sprawled on the couch, head tilted back and mouth open in gentle snores, one leg tossed over the armrest and the other on the floor along with his hand. He had ink stains on his fingers, clothes, the base of his chin and even on the ends of his hair, and Rose clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. An idea suddenly occurred to her, and Rose circled the couch carefully so she wouldn't wake him and headed towards the galley.

* * *

When John roused, it was because of a slender hand on his shoulder and a sweet smell by his face. He exhaled deeply, humming and turning his nose towards the scent only to have it press against something warm and decidedly arm-like. Pulling away with a frown, he opened his eyes and, after blinking the fog away, sat up with a jolt when he spotted Rose wearing a warm smile and holding a cup on a saucer.

"Rose," he all but gasped, blushing scarlet and hoping for a fleeting moment that he hadn't been drooling.

"John," she said teasingly, holding out the saucer and cup to him. "Good morning to you as well."

He took the cup obediently, staring at it in astonishment before blurting out like a buffoon, "Er, what's this?"

"Tea, hopefully," Rose said with a modest shrug, biting her lip. "Dr. Sullivan said I'd remember how to make food, so I think it's tea."

He wasn't quite certain how to react, both because he was still groggy from sleep and because nobody had ever done anything for him, ever. And because he was notoriously awful with the fairer sex.

"Thank you," he managed to force out, sounding horribly abrupt and ungrateful even to his own ears.

Rose was somehow oblivious to it, looking completely thrilled at his poor praise. Then she ducked her head, looking almost as vulnerable as she had when she first woke up and realised she had no memories. "I know it isn't much but… I just wanted to thank you. For everythin'." She smiled at him, and there was something brilliant about it. (_Of starlight in her smile and mind; Of gentle favours done in kind). _"So… thank you."

He half-hid behind his teacup. "Er, you're welcome."

She either sensed his discomfort or felt it as well, since she fidgeted before saying instead, "So where are we going first?"

John cleared his throat, taking on an earnest expression. "I was thinking the common hall— perhaps the Lord Mayor knows you, and if not he might be able to find someone who does."

Rose frowned. "Why would the Lord Mayor know me?"

"Your handkerchief and travelling cloak look very expensive," John said, admitting his suspicion.

"But my dress wasn't," Rose said, nodding. When he gave her a confused look, she shrugged and said, "I noticed as well."

"Well in any case," said John, sending her an impressed look that she blushed becomingly at, "it's another clue to who you are, so we ought to start with the highest power in the city, no?"

She nodded, eyes bright and smile lighting up her face again, and he just had to smile back. He instructed her to fetch a travelling cloak from the armoire from his bedroom, since hers was still unwashed and not mended, and when she stepped out of the room he finally took a sip of his tea, nearly spluttering it out in shock when he found it utterly delicious. For somebody with no memory, she certainly remembered how to make an almost surreal cuppa. He drank it down quickly despite wishing he could savour it — there would be time in the future if they struck out today — before placing it in the kitchen basin and snatching up his coat.

Rose emerged wearing one of his old travelling cloaks, and she tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow before letting him lead her onto the porch. Mr. Copper was out on his own porch as usual, except it looked suspiciously like he'd camped out there, especially since his wife had joined him for the first time in the twenty years he and John had been neighbours. John, as he had the day previous, kept his eyes straight ahead and prayed Rose wouldn't notice them again, but when Mrs. Copper's chair creaked when she sat up a little straighter to better gawk at them Rose turned around. To everybody's surprise, she smiled brightly and gave a little wave that Mr. Copper tentatively returned, looking astonished. John couldn't help but smirk a little, giving Rose's hand an unconscious, endearing pat.

They headed into the city, and John bought Rose a bagel from a vending cart to tide her over until lunchtime. Their first stop, as he'd promised, was to the common hall, where they met with the Lord Mayor. The man, a balding, snappish older gentleman called Sneed, pursed his lips the moment John called out his name and approached him, but plain astonishment fell over his face the moment he spotted Rose on John's arm. John bristled a little as Rose grew uncomfortable from Mr. Sneed's incessant staring. He and Sneed had never quite gotten along, as Sneed was the kind of man who believed rumours easily, like Mr. Copper, although unlike his boisterous neighbour Sneed was the type to add on his own nonsense to the gossip, mostly to project attention away from himself and his suspicious relationship with his ward, Gwyneth— however it was certainly not an excuse to be rude to Rose, a perfectly innocent, kind woman whose only crime was being seen with him.

John cleared his throat loudly so that Sneed would stop, glaring daggers at the flustered-looking man when he finally looked up. Upon explaining the situation, John added, "We were hoping that perchance you knew her, or at least her family."

"I'm afraid I don't," Sneed said, a clipped edge to his tone that Rose noticed and frowned at. "And I'm afraid it shan't be easy to find her family, without a surname to go along with it. However, I shall put the word out around the city and all surrounding towns."

"Thank you," John said, which Sneed all but ignored.

As John placed an arm around Rose's shoulders and steered her out of the building, Rose said indignantly, "That man was utterly horrid."

John smiled at her, in what was in all probability a very soppy way. "Indeed. Sneed and I have never seen eye to eye— I apologise beforehand if it impairs his resolve to help find your family."

She waved away his apology. "Why not?"

His smile vanished, and he looked sternly ahead of him. "There are very few people in London that like me, Rose."

"Why not?" she repeated, frown deepening.

To prevent him from storming off or ignoring her question, Rose released his arm and stepped in front of him so he couldn't continue walking. John, despite hating the fact that the truth was finally coming into her view, couldn't help but feel a little better about it, since Rose looked appalled at the very thought, as though she couldn't believe anybody could possibly hate him.

"I'm… odd," he said awkwardly, with a shrug.

She grinned at him, tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth. He found it charming. "Yes you are, but what does that have to do with anything?"

He sent her a sharp look, even though his chest felt tight and his stomach felt like it was filled with fuzzy warmth. "I'm also horribly rude, Rose," he added, giving her the slightest of smiles.

"How can anybody take in a complete stranger, buy her clothing and take his own time to try and help her find her family and still be rude?" Rose insisted, no longer smiling, although her eyes did soften when he flushed a furious crimson.

"I don't do this every day, you know," he pointed out, despite feeling horribly pleased.

"Do people know you're doing it at all?" When he didn't answer, Rose grinned again and, slipping her arm around his again and resuming walking, she said, "Well then, I'll tell the whole city."

"Please don't," he half-groused, half-pleaded, and she laughed.

"Perhaps I'll start with your neighbour," Rose suggested teasingly, head pressing against his shoulder.

"Rose," he groaned.

"Take out an ad in the newspaper…"

"Stop."

"Better make it the front page, just to be certain."

Everybody within a fifty-metre radius heard their conjoined laughter. It'd been ever so long since he'd laughed, but oh, Rose was bring up all sorts of emotions that were positively lovely and he couldn't help it, not when every inch of tension was bleeding out of his shoulders and he felt like nothing was wrong, at all, for the first time since he was five years old.

They combed around the city for a bit longer, knocking on the doors of the more upper-class people to see if they knew her or could reach out to their social groups to see if anybody else did, although there weren't very many in walking distance. He bought lunch for the two of them, a box full of warm, freshly baked, cheese-filled bread that a baker had been selling outside his shop, and they took a break from searching to just stroll around the lovelier parts of London. Rose was companionable and engaging, for somebody with no memory, and it seemed like every little gesture or comment either made him laugh or inspired a snippet of poetry.

"This is pretty," Rose commented, resting her head on his shoulder as they strolled through the park.

He hummed in agreement, stuffing the rest of his bread into his mouth with little finesse and wiping crumbs off of his fingers. "It's particularly lovely in early autumn."

"When all the leaves change?" John nodded, and she sighed dreamily. "I can't wait to see that. I mean, I know what it looks like in a practical sense, but in a way I haven't actually seen it."

"You shall," he promised, already imagining taking her for another stroll in the park beneath flaming leaves despite their initial goal of finding her family soon.

She beamed at his promise, but shivered the moment a bitter cold breeze started through the air, tearing through the leaves and making her travelling cloak and hair whip back, rippling in the wind (_Ribbons wrapped 'round velvet fingers; The sweet embrace of textile lingers). _

"Perhaps we ought to head back home," John said, unconsciously giving her shoulder a squeeze as she gravitated towards him for warmth, and she nodded in agreement, so he steered her out from underneath the bower of still-green trees and back the way they came.

"Can we come back tomorrow?" she asked, pulling her cloak more firmly around her shoulders with one hand, the other clutching onto him tightly.

"I'm afraid tomorrow morning I'll have to open the shop, but perhaps at week's end," John supplied, but despite his refusal her eyes glinted.

"You make clocks?" He nodded, and she said, "I saw them. They're lovely."

He blushed yet again, saying awkwardly, "Er, thank you." Would she never stop complimenting him?

They strolled past Mr. Copper, who was yet again on his porch, this time with a bevy of friends who were 'inconspicuously' sitting at a wooden table playing cards. Rose gave each and every gaping, over-fifty man at the table one of her brilliant smiles and a kind wave that had every already ruddy-faced bloke flushing crimson, and John couldn't help but let a smirk cross his face despite keeping his eyes steadily ahead of him.

When they entered the house, shivering slightly, John made a beeline for the fireplace, relighting the smouldering fire quickly and ushering Rose near it so she could warm up before she caught ill. She did, allowing him to take her travelling cloak and put it back in the wardrobe before suggesting, "Can I try and make dinner tonight?" He glanced at her, frowning a little as he shut the armoire, and before he had a chance to try and think of how to ask her if she even knew how to cook without sounding horribly rude, she added hurriedly, "I mean, with your help of course, since I haven't a clue how, but I'd like to do _something _to help."

He shrugged, saying, "I don't see a problem with that."

John quickly discovered what exactly the 'problem' with that was, after less than ten minutes of trying to teach Rose how to cook the simplest of meals he could think of— vegetable soup and warm, glazed bread. Rose boiled over the vegetables and turned them into some kind of soggy mush that John couldn't identify and somehow managed to char the bread black and had no idea how she did it. A half hour went by and Rose and John were practically draped across the kitchen counters, both of them laughing hysterically even as Rose wailed out her apologies. Despite the completely botched dinner, John couldn't help but feel elated— here he was, smiling for the second time in the same day, let alone laughing, and it felt _brilliant. _

John ended up taking some extra bread out of the pantry and heating up some leftover soup from the icebox, although Rose did compromise by making him another absolutely smashing cup of tea. When the sun set and the fire warmed the room comfortably, Rose sent him one last tongue-touched smile before bidding him goodnight and retiring to her bedroom, leaving him sitting on the couch and smiling at the wall like a silly old fool. He was exhausted from the day of walking through London and laughing like a carefree child, so he changed into a loose-fitting shirt and trousers (makeshift jimjams, since there was _no way _he was walking around in his nightgown with Rose in his house) laid his head down on the couch and wriggled to get comfortable, but found he couldn't stop his thoughts from reeling.

The second his adrenaline lowered, the elation ebbed away quickly, and his facial muscles settled back into their old routine of frowning. Rose was brilliant, she was clever and she was kind, and more than easy on the eye (not that he'd been looking) and she was extraordinarily unrealistic. It was foolish to get sucked into the euphoric atmosphere she created as he had today; in the past, whenever he'd let his guard down even in the slightest, around anyone, they'd always either reject him or leave him. And Rose was going to leave him one way or another, whether it would be because they'd find her family or because she'd decide she didn't need him to survive anymore and find her own place.

But _oh,_ he adored her. He adored how much she seemed to enjoy his company, how her eyebrows crinkled together and a dimple appeared in her left cheek whenever he said something self-deprecating and how she seemed to think he was the epitome of sainthood. Well, John supposed as he tucked his elbow underneath his head, he was all she technically knew. Warmth tingled in his chest despite the situation— he was her entire world, and he liked it. It was nice, having somebody dependent on him.

So the question was whether or not he ought to keep his distance from Rose. His heart panged when he thought about pushing her away, especially when she, as a person with nothing to her name, was desperately searching for closeness. John rolled over, facing the backrest of the sofa with a determined glare. If that was what Rose desired, then he would shove aside all selfishness and risk his own heart for her sake.

Maybe the supposed chivalry of it would lessen the hurt when Rose inevitably left.

* * *

John woke, from a lovely but peculiar dream of snuggling with Rose in the park, to the sounds of Mr. Copper's boisterous voice. Upon blinking sleep out of his eyes and shivering at the temperature in the room, John scowled at the ceiling and sat up hurriedly, combing his unruly hair back. He tossed his legs over the side of the couch and, upon quickly pulling on his jacket over his shirt, John stormed out to the front of the shop to give Mr. Copper a piece of his mind about his volume, with its potential to waken half the city, let alone Rose.

Said guest of his was out on Mr. Copper's front porch, already dressed in her day gown with his cloak around her shoulders. And, John was shocked to see, she was smiling brilliantly at Mr. Copper, who was now in mid-guffaw, one hand curled over her shoulder. John opened the door, stepping onto his own porch and glaring at the man's hand, which had no business being where it was.

Upon spotting him, Rose bid Mr. Copper a polite, "Until tomorrow," to which Mr. Copper replied with ecstatic fervour, "Yes of course, my dear!" and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze (earning another glare on John's part) before Rose bounced off of his porch and up to John, cheeks flushed with the cold and from her smile. John ushered her into the house, keeping his eyes locked on Mr. Copper in a half-shocked half-wary manner, until the older man shuffled his feet awkwardly before giving John a tentative, "Hello," and bustling back into his house in a hurry.

John simply gaped as his neighbour's front door, doing nothing but staring in shock for who knows how long until a gust of bitter cold wind reminded him just where he was standing. Shutting his mouth with a click and shivering, John hurried back into the warmth of the house, where Rose was unpinning her travelling cloak. "Why were you speaking with Mr. Copper?" John asked, still decidedly stumped.

"He was on his porch again," Rose shrugged, rubbing at her arms to ward off the chill, prompting him to immediately circle around to the fireplace.

"And you just approached him?" John scowled at her patronisingly as he loaded a few logs onto the embers and lit a couple of old newspapers to aid it along. "What if he had been dangerous?"

Rose snorted. "Mr. Copper's only dangerous to his azaleas. And his wife's very sweet— says she'll teach me how to cook, since I think we've proven I can't," she added, grinning at him, which he returned on instinct.

"Only you could get Mr. Copper to so much as look at me, let alone say 'hello'," said John with a fond look, grabbing the mantle and using it to hoist himself up and thereby missing Rose's frown.

"He hasn't greeted you before?"

"Not with anything but an odd look," he shrugged.

"Why not?" she scowled.

"I'm odd and horribly rude, remember?" he reminded her, this time with a brilliant grin that had her rolling her eyes instead of arguing.

John hurriedly threw together a breakfast of tea and buttered toast before changing into some clean clothes and switching the 'closed' sign on the door to 'open', and they chattered happily up until the first person opened the door. Under a silent agreement, Rose kept quiet when John was with a customer, although it didn't keep her from pursing her lips and sending secret glares whenever said customer would be waspish and rude towards him. He was unperturbed — it had been customary for years, after all — but he did feel a delighted bubbly feeling whenever Rose would mutter insults under her breath after the customer had left, and he had to send her a sharp look and pretend he didn't approve.

The last customer of the day was a large blonde woman with a ridiculously colourful dress, a Madame Margaret Blaine. She strode in like she owned the place and sent her almost snappish request for a handmade antique wall clock in John's direction before glancing at Rose and frowning at her slightly. Rose granted her the tightest of smiles before abruptly ducking her head, glaring daggers at Madame Margaret from behind her hair before pretending to be engrossed in one of John's broken clocks on his workbench. The back was open, revealing the clockwork interior, and tools were scattered around it.

"I'm afraid I haven't anything in working order that precisely fits your request, Madame," said John regretfully as he re-emerged from the shelves. "Perhaps—"

Everybody in the room jumped when the clock on the workbench suddenly started making a loud 'cuckoo' sound; John whipped his head around, only to see Rose with her hands clutched at her chest, cheeks pink and eyes wide. "What did you do?" he gaped in astonishment, momentarily forgetting Madame Margaret was even in the room. "That's been broken for years!"

"Well, I didn't think there was supposed to be a stick in it," Rose said with an earnest shrug and a slight grin, holding up a thin twig that looked like it'd been chipped off the wooden interior.

"Bring it here," said Madame Margaret abruptly, and Rose carefully picked it up from the workbench and carried it by the still gaping John towards the counter. "I'll buy it."

"You will?!" John and Rose both said in delight.

"It's perfect." Madame Margaret greedily ran her hands over it, to the point where it got a bit odd. "My family collects these, you know— this one's bound to outshine them all." John didn't even have to haggle over the price— Margaret paid his first suggested price straight away, and when her purchase was bagged and in her hands she said with a slightly softened look between the two of them (though not overly so), "You keep that girl, Mr. Smith. She's good for you."

The two of them blushed crimson, but Rose recovered first, saying a polite 'goodbye' while John hid himself behind the shelf and tried to collect himself. Oh, he knew she was good for him — he didn't need somebody else to tell him that — but he couldn't keep her. He knew it, and it hurt.

The rest of the day was spent in her companionship, and the next morning as well. He'd never tire of falling asleep and waking up to her smile and the warmth of their conversation, and any time he managed to get her to make that special tongue-touched grin emerge was an accomplishment in his mind. They spent the next week alternating between combing through London in search of anybody who might know Rose, and staying in the shop attending to customers, all of whom seemed to be slightly less abrasive whenever they spoke to Rose, which encouraged John to let her greet everyone who came through the door. He even taught her a little bit about clocks, until one day Rose managed to piece together the workings of a small clock all on her own. He'd beamed at her non-stop that day, which had the added bonus of making her cheeks blush pink for the duration.

A couple of weeks went by and the start of autumn neared. John and Rose still took almost daily strolls through the park and through London, but had all but forgotten their goal of searching for Rose's family— he rationalised that they'd already spoken to all the people who could reach out further in search and that there really wasn't anything else they could do, but the truth was it made it a whole lot easier to pretend Rose belonged to him and him alone, that there was no outside source that had every right and reason to take her away.

They had great fun trying to figure our what secret talents Rose possessed, since she obviously could not cook to save her life. He quizzed her on mathematics and sciences, which Rose knew absolutely nothing about, and when he sat her down with a charcoal pencil and parchment and told her to draw the tree outside, she produced a more than decent sketch, so she was a lovely artist; he also gave her a needle and thread from his mother's old sewing kit to see if she could sew, resulting in a gigantic knot that they both spent hours trying to untangle. At the same time, when he tried showing her music, she neither knew how to read it nor knew any songs, but when he taught her in his horribly gravely voice the simplest of songs he knew — unfortunately it was a church song, but it wasn't exactly like he knew anything else — Rose's dulcet, utterly gorgeous voice had him completely stunned and made his already awful voice sound like a thousand screeching violins.

Two weeks turned into a month and a half, and the leaves changed from pale green to brilliant shades of orange, yellow, red and mauve, just as Rose had dreamed. John was more than pleased to be able to keep his promise, but instead of taking her to the park he took her down the path he'd followed when he found her, horribly sullied and terribly hurt. He didn't tell her that, instead watching with a kind of brilliant, endearing nostalgia as she practically danced beneath the shutter of fiery trees, shouting her delight to the sky.

John enjoyed a new relationship with the community, who no longer snubbed him, particularly when Rose was in his presence, making him smile almost smugly like he was the luckiest man in the world and everybody else was unfortunate not to have Rose in their company. He especially enjoyed his new association with Mr. Copper and his family. Gone were the years of almost disturbed looks whenever he'd pass by— Mrs. Copper frequently invited Rose to the house for tea, and since John found he wasn't content to be without her longer than a half hour, he often waited for her on the porch and chatted amicably with Mr. Copper. The man, ruddy-faced and looking deeply ashamed of himself, apologised for being rude all these years and confessed to suspecting John was secretly a murderer. Charming, to say the least, but John was glad nonetheless.

He told Rose of his childhood, of growing up in Scotland and of being ridiculed into silence by everyone he'd ever known. He spoke, with his voice slightly wavering, of his parents dying before their time when he was two and twenty years old, in a fire that ravaged their house— Rose had laid her head on his shoulder the whole while, tracing comforting circles over the palm of his hand, and somehow that made it better. He also told her about his longstanding ambition of being a poet, despite his almost equally longstanding career as a clockmaker. Rose naturally encouraged him to get what he had published, despite having only read one poem by him; by that notion he did what he'd been too frightened to do for most of his life and let her see some of his other poems (although he kept the ones about her hidden safely in his drawer). He'd never been happier in his entire fifty-five years of existence when she beamed at him and told him how much she utterly adored them.

Oh, by the Lord, he loved her.

When John realised it, it was like a brick to the head, and he'd panicked for the good of an hour post-realisation. Of _course _he loved her— how could he not? Rose was warmth and kindness and inspiration and every endearing quality John could think of wrapped into one stunningly beautiful woman who still, after all this time, couldn't tell the world her last name. She adored his poems, chastised him for his (nowadays scarce) self-deprecating comments and was his first friend, ever. She inspired dozens upon dozens of poems and made him feel happy about the silliest of things, and she somehow managed to change the city's opinion of him by simply existing. Still, it was disconcerting to say the least— John had never outwardly been in love, besides the child-love he'd felt for Romana and the occasional pretty girl in his class.

He found that his eyes started to play tricks on him, making him see her watching him from the corner of his eye, or imagining that her touches or gazes lingered longer than necessary. It wasn't all he was seeing— there were several instances where John would go to bed uncomfortable, after a long day of noticing nothing but the slope of her breasts and the curve of her arse, or how she somehow managed to smell like brown sugar and cocoa butter when he had neither of those things in his house. John wanted to tell her — how much he loved her, that is, not about noticing things he oughtn't be noticing — but no matter how much he dwelled on it, he couldn't figure out _how._

It was all he thought about, envisioning a hundred possibilities and a thousand different outcomes. He could just blurt it out, just like that, although whenever he imagined Rose's reaction it never ended well; he could write her a sonnet, although he wasn't entirely certain she'd understand the hinted meaning; and there was always the possibility of simply stealing a kiss, although he was sure he'd never find the right moment to.

It was one of the rare occasions when John went out for supplies for his shop in the morning without Rose on his arm, as she'd been invited to the Coppers' house for another cooking lesson (which, he mused with a chuckle, weren't helping in the slightest, since she still couldn't even make toast without burning it). He walked through the bitter near-winter air the whole way there, imagining possible things to say or do as he strolled into the supply shop, picking up varnish and pins for his clocks and more parchment for his poetry. John paused halfway down the street, wondering if perhaps he ought to pick a gift for Rose. Over the past two months he'd bought her dozens of things, from new dresses to things she picked out in a shop, but none of them particularly conveyed the magnitude of his feelings for her.

A cart down the street was selling flowers, which John made a beeline for. He debated for a full twenty minutes whether or not to get her the flower of her namesake, wondering whether or not it would be too unimaginative, but after a man waiting behind him yelled in a thick Irish brogue, "_Hurry up an' make yehr bloody choice, ya bleedin' old sod!_" John finally decided to buy a single rose, tucking it carefully in his bag so it wouldn't get crumpled by his other things.

He waved to Mr. Copper, who waved merrily back as he smoked his pipe on the porch, and upon entering the house John was met with a delectable smell, like Rose's scent only increased tenfold with cinnamon added to it. When he circled the display case, setting down his bags in the front room but keeping the rose hidden behind his back, the first sight that greeted John was Rose's backside stuck in the air as she bent over the oven. Since she didn't see him, he paused to admire it for the briefest of moments, before stunning himself with a fleeting dream of Rose just as she was, except with his ring on her finger.

"Are you baking?" he said in astonishment, making her jump and whirl around.

Oh, she looked fetching, with a little jewelled necklace he'd bought her around her neck and her hair tucked into a cap, little strands of hair poking out at the sides and framing her work-flushed face. (_Pale white hide like sweetened snow; An ivory shade with cheeks aglow_) "Maybe," she said coyly, tongue at the corner of her mouth again. "Mrs. Copper taught me how— hopefully I don't completely destroy your kitchen."

"It smells wonderful," John supplied, glad to see a blush add to the hue on her cheeks at his praise. His own face heated up slightly, upon producing the rose from behind his back. "Er, this is for you."

"Really?" She beamed, accepting the rose and looking like he'd just handed her the crown jewels. "Thank you," she added shyly, half-hiding her crimson face behind the flower.

He opened his mouth to blurt out just why he'd given her a flower, why he thought of the million ways to make her smile or blush or laugh, why he dreamed more than one night of sharing his bed with her and making her sing with pleasure using only his fingers and why whenever she bathed behind the screen, he'd go into the other room to give her physical privacy but pictured what she might look like dressed in nothing but soap suds to the point where practical privacy didn't exist.

"Er, you're welcome," he said instead, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, before turning on his heels and positively fleeing the room.

Once in the backroom, John moodily stuffed his new parchment into his desk drawer, furious at himself. This had to be the hundredth opportunity, wasted because of his own cowardice. He ought to just storm into the kitchen, shove Rose up against the wall and kiss her breathless. He'd never do it, of course, but he could dream.

John made lunch, teasing her with mirth about it until she threatened to give the pie away to the Coppers next door. Said pie turned out slightly burnt at the corners, but was otherwise utterly delicious, which John told her so multiple times just to see a blush creep up her cheeks and flush her breasts. After lunch, John and Rose retired to the couch as usual, caught up in conversation. John sat with one arm draped over the couch, half-listening to her talk about Mrs. Copper's decision to teach her how to sew, more engrossed in the stretch of her smile and the firelight reflecting off her eyes (_Flickering shades behind the umber; A spirited dance to fit the number_) than what she was saying.

"… and then maybe we could go to the newspaper and have one of your poems published."

That successfully snapped him back to attention."_What_?!" he almost snapped, frowning at her.

She looked completely earnest. "I'm serious. You said you've always wanted to, yes?"

"But—" he spluttered.

"So why not submit it to the newspaper?" Rose interrupted, before he could argue. "The worst that can happen is they say no— not that they will." At his pointed but flattered look, her tongue found its way to the corner of her mouth again and it was all he could look at. "I've read them all." _No, Rose, you haven't. Not all of them. _"And they're all the most beautiful thing I've ever read."

John wasn't entirely certain how long it took for him to move, but all he knew was that what felt like a split second later he suddenly found himself three feet forward, leaning on his elbow as he glued his lips against Rose's feather-soft ones.

And oh, she kissed him _back_.

She tilted her head to the side for a better angle, leaning forward and sinking her hands into his hair. He couldn't help but moan at the feeling of her nails dragging along his scalp, weaving one hand through her hair and accidentally undoing the bun she'd made, letting her hair tumble down around her shoulders. She tasted like the cinnamon from the pie she'd made, so he plunged his tongue between her lips for another taste, and the noise she made shot straight to his groin. He reached over with his free hand to pull her closer, fully planning on drawing her into his lap, but a rapid knock on the door made them both freeze and part very reluctantly.

John swore under his breath and glared daggers at the doorway, and Rose laughed before giving his hair a small ruffle with her fingers. He dragged her hand up to his mouth and gave it a brief kiss before promising on a murmur, "I'll get rid of them."

He got up from the couch, nearly stumbling at the pleasant feeling buzzing through his head, and upon circling into the front shop he tore open the door, preparing to turn away a travelling salesman or a customer who didn't bother to read the 'closed' sign on the front door. The person who'd knocked was a balding ginger man about ten years younger than John, and behind him was a large blonde woman in an expensive wraparound gown, a ridiculously long black feather in her cap.

"Where's my daughter?" the blonde woman demanded, elbowing the ginger man out of the way and nearly knocking John onto his arse in an attempt to barrel into the shop.

"I beg your pardon, Madame?" John asked, trying to stay polite but letting a little bit of irritation seep into his tone.

"I apologise for my wife, sir," said the other man apologetically. They both pretended not to see the woman glare daggers at the both of them. "My name is Pete Tyler, Duke of Powell. This is my wife, Jackie."

"Er, welcome," said John a bit awkwardly, shaking the man's hand and wondering why on Earth a duke had just shown up on his doorstep. "Can I help you?"

"I should daresay so," Jackie said indignantly.

"We've received word you'd discovered a young woman some time ago," Pete said, giving his wife's hand a pat.

"Yes," said John, narrowing his eyes a bit. "Why?"

"She's our daughter."

**A/N: I know, I know. I'm horrible :3 Thanks go to teddybowties (yes the poetry's mine :3), jenn008, Genesis Chi, moviemaniac217, New Eliza D, EpicGuest, DeepBlue-Sama, MusicLover500, InfinitiesLover, Miral-Romanov and my newest friend Kathryn Hart :) Again, all poetry in here is © me; the title of this chapter is from another snippet written by me: "With dusted skies and a jagged rival; Mightn't we be sure of sole survival?"**

**EDIT: I apologise now for saying there was a plastic article in a historical AU -_- A quick thank you to Ceras on AO3 for pointing that out.**


	3. The Last Climactic Note Does Linger

**Beta: Miral-Romanov**

* * *

Chapter 3

The Last Climactic Note Does Linger

"Your daughter?" repeated John blankly.

"Yes, Rose Marion Tyler," Pete nodded, and John felt his heart drop into his stomach. "She disappeared at the end of summer."

"I see," he replied almost dumbly, suddenly numb all over.

Rose suddenly appeared in the doorway between the shop and the backroom with her hair back in its respective bun, peeking around the corner curiously as she said, "Who is it, John?"

"Rose," gasped Pete, and Jackie all but wailed, "OH MY ROSIE!" before hurling herself towards Rose. She gasped out in alarm, stumbling away from the woman and hurrying towards John, who on instinct dragged her into a protective embrace and sent a suspicious glare at an almost horrified-looking Pete and Jackie.

"Who are you?" Rose said, voice shaking as she clung onto John for dear life.

"We are your parents, Rose," Pete said gently, while Jackie looked like she was nearing a crying fit.

"I…" Rose whispered, trailing off.

John gave her waist a gentle, comforting squeeze despite the fact that his heart was thudding rapidly against his ribcage. "She has no memory of anything before I found her."

Jackie let out a whimper, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth and staring at Rose to the point of discomfort. Pete, swallowing hard, asked, "Where did you find her?"

"At the bottom of a hill."

"About a mile and a half northwest of here?" When John nodded, stunned, Pete couldn't help but send a patronising (John tried hard not to think _fatherly_) look in Rose's direction. "She called it 'Mount Perdition' when she was a little girl. Always went up there to play even though we told her a hundred times not to."

"Don't you remember us at all?" Jackie suddenly wailed, making everybody jump and causing Rose to hide slightly behind John. "Don't you remember your little brother?"

Since Rose looked frightened, whether it was because Jackie was now sobbing or because of the idea of having a younger sibling she didn't remember, John said quickly, "Madame, please," at the same time that Pete said with caution, "Jacks…"

"Well it's true!" said Jackie shrilly.

"But how can you prove any of it?" demanded Rose from behind John, suddenly gaining the confidence to ask what John had been wanting to ask as well. "You just show up here claiming that I'm your daughter, even though it's been weeks since we went looking for anyone who knew me!"

Jackie flinched, but Pete said in earnest, "We only heard from our friend Sneed yesterday morning. We've a carriage waiting outside, if you'd like to see the estate and see we're telling the truth. Mr. Smith can accompany you, of course," Pete added quickly, when Rose practically clamped herself to John's side.

John swallowed thickly, looking down at Rose for an answer and hoping she'd refuse, praying she'd order her so-called 'parents' to leave and never return and then maybe resume what they'd started five minutes earlier. She glanced at him for the briefest of moments before ducking her head and nodding, and his hope bled out of him at once.

As they followed the duke and duchess out of his house, Rose continued to cling onto him as though expecting to be yanked away, leaving unnoticed that he was now rigid and his face had gone blank. She was forced to let go when they were led to an elegant carriage, and a coachman opened the door and helped the duke, duchess and Rose inside, and John used the little room available as an excuse to try and push himself as far from her as possible, staring impassively out the window at the rolling countryside. Rose was torn between wanting to examine the upper class carriage in awe and wanting to hide behind John again, since Jackie was watching her incessantly with red-rimmed eyes, but because of John's abrupt withdrawal she kept her head in her lap and her eyes locked on her knees.

"Here we are," said Pete awkwardly, when the carriage halted to a stop.

The velvet curtain obstructed the view outside, but when Jackie bustled out first and Pete graciously stayed behind to aid Rose out, John exited as well only to have his jaw hit the ground. Having lived in the more reclusive areas of Glasgow, the loveliest building John had ever seen had been the local church, and that had had paint peeling off the walls. The Powell Estate put the most beautiful of churches to shame, an enormous edifice of glittering stone and crystal windows in the midst of a giant stretch of darkened fields, with an unnecessarily large fountain of a woman holding a jar on her shoulder in the front. John took it in with an almost stony expression and a lump in his throat; under any other circumstance he'd be jotting down poetry because of the view, but he was painfully aware that the time he'd been dreading might have arrived.

Rose wanted to reach for his hand, but as he refused to look at her she instead trailed her fingers over the stone of the fountain when they passed it by, concentrating on the feeling of cool marble underneath her fingertips to try and invoke a memory, and failing. Jackie and Pete led them into the foyer, and Rose stopped walking when she spotted a portrait hung several feet up on the wall of a little girl in an elegant dress, with tightly curled blonde locks and the same eyes, nose and face shape as Rose had.

"We had that done for you when you were nine," Pete said softly, placing a hand on Rose's shoulder.

"It must have been horribly boring to pose for," she replied without mirth, and Jackie let out a tiny chuckle.

"Must have been, since you ran off about a dozen times when the painter wasn't looking," Jackie said fondly. "It's why there aren't any paintings of you when you're older— can't sit still to save your life."

Jackie and Pete led them into the elegantly lavished hallway, where a dark-skinned maid spotted Rose and actually dropped her thankfully empty bucket.

"Lady Rose, welcome home!" she said ecstatically, dropping into a hasty curtsy despite the friendly smile on her face.

"I-I don't…" Rose stammered, stumbling backwards slightly and glancing towards John for help, but he was steadfastly ignoring her.

"She has no memory, Cathica," said Pete kindly, but Jackie said impatiently, "Return to your duties."

Cathica obediently hurried off, and Rose chanced another glance at John, but he was examining a blank spot on the wall with the utmost amount of interest and Rose flinched when she realised just what he was doing— he was distancing himself from her, like he had when they first met.

"This is your bedroom," said Pete, upon pushing open a carved oak door.

Rose stepped in to take in her surroundings, but John lolled in the background, both because of politeness and because Jackie glared daggers at him to make absolutely certain he knew he wasn't welcome before entering the room herself. It was a typical young woman's bedroom, feminine odds and ends scattered across the room with little knickknacks left over from childhood. The wardrobe was slightly ajar, peeking at tasteful dresses and a travelling cloak identical to the one Rose was found in except in a shade of green, and the view from the window overlooked all of the rolling hills and showed a glimpse of the city.

"Do you believe us now, sweetheart?" Jackie said gently.

John watched Rose's back as she ducked her head, swallowing once before nodding, causing Jackie's face to split into a smile. Feeling hollow, John turned on his heel and strode away down the hall.

* * *

"Won't you stay the night?" said Pete, once he, his wife and John had gathered in the foyer.

"No, thank you," John replied stiffly, purposely avoiding looking at Rose's portrait. "I must return to the shop."

"Thank you," burst out Jackie, turning slightly pink. "For taking care of our daughter, I mean. And I apologise for, er, shouting."

"Think not of it, Madame," said John blankly.

He turned around and strode out of the estate, heading for the carriage, which Pete and Jackie had graciously lent him to get home. Just as he was circling past the fountain, running footsteps approached him and Rose's frantic voice called out, "Wait!" He stiffened, turning around slowly and looking at her shoulder instead of her face. "Are you just going to leave?"

"I can't stay here, you know," he said, purposely vague.

"So I'll just never see you again, is that it?" Rose said, sounding hurt and near tears.

His throat clenched and he had to swallow three times to be able to speak again. "You've found your family," he said stonily. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I wanted to know who I am!"

"Now you know."

"I don't want to stay here."

"You_ must_."

She flinched at how snappish his tone was, and how his fists were clenched. Her face hardened, jaw setting and voice radiating resentment. "Goodbye then, Mr. Smith." It was his turn to flinch at the distance she put between them simply by calling him that. "Tell Mr. and Mrs. Copper I said goodbye as well."

She turned on her heel and sprinted towards the estate, allowing John to fully take her in, watching her run from him with a lump in his throat. He'd known when he allowed her into his heart the risk he was taking— now she was running from him, back to her family where she belonged, just like he knew she would.

Because everyone _always _left.

* * *

Rose bypassed several maids on her way to her room, tears already streaming even before she slammed the door shut behind her and collapsed onto the bed. She was just starting up a good cry into her pillow when Jackie barged in, gasping out an 'oh' when she spotted Rose.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" Jackie asked, and even though her voice was gentle and motherly Rose wanted nothing to do with her.

"Go away." She hugged her pillow, not caring at the look of hurt that crossed Jackie's face. "Please."

"I'll be in the sitting room if you need me," Jackie said kindly despite Rose's rejection, stepping out and closing the door behind her quietly.

Rose sobbed out her despair into her pillow, hating where she was, _who _she was. She wished her surroundings were decidedly male instead of far too feminine; she wished the bed was stiffer and there wasn't so much lace; more than anything she wished she were the daughter of a farmer and his wife instead of a duke and a duchess. At least then she'd have an excuse to visit John, although he now wanted nothing to do with her— that much was clear from his actions, and it only made her cry harder. Wrapping her arms around herself for comfort, Rose drifted off to memories of sitting by the fire with him in the splintery wooden clock store.

* * *

By the time the carriage stopped outside John's store, the sun was setting and the light was waning. John shoved open the door and hurled himself out of the carriage without thanking the coachman, wanting to get as far away from any reminder of Rose's status as he possibly could. Mr. Copper, to his annoyance, was still lounging on his porch like the nosy arse that he was, turning around and beaming at John when he spotted him.

"Evening," Mr. Copper said good-naturedly. "Where's your Rose gone to, eh?"

"She's gone home," John snapped, breezing past him without looking at him. "And she's not mine."

He ignored Mr. Copper's confused look and stormed into his house, slamming the door behind him and pausing a moment to take in his surroundings. The air still held the scent of cinnamon from the pie she'd made hours ago and her things were scattered here and there across his house— a hair ribbon on the end table, the rose he'd bought her in a vase off to the side and Rose's first successfully made clock on the display case, presented above all others like the crown jewels.

Cursing himself mentally for letting her fill his home with her presence when he knew full well he'd just have to say goodbye to her, John stared hard at the ground so as not to see anything that belonged to her and circled around the backroom, making a beeline for what was now his bedroom again. It too was filled with the gifts he'd gotten her, multiple dresses hanging over the edge of the chair, but he ignored them and sank onto his bed, bringing the sheets up to his nose and inhaling deeply. Her scent still clung to the fibres mixed with the cinnamon air and he sank into it, falling asleep in its embrace.

He had dreams of her running away, and in them he always ran after her before giving up, sinking to his knees and crying out apologies. When he woke up, it was afternoon and the scent of cinnamon and Rose were gone, replaced with his own scent, and he almost sobbed at the loss. John had to drag himself out of bed, moving slowly as through swimming through molasses and slinking into the kitchen to eat a meagre lunch of bread and cheese.

He sat in the kitchen for the longest time, debating whether or not to gather all of Rose's things into a box and have them shipped to her, but he decided against it since he didn't have the heart to look at anything, let alone touch it and send it away. His stomach felt hollow despite his pathetic excuse for a lunch, so John did what he usually did to make himself feel better— he circled around to his backroom, sank onto the workbench and prepared a parchment and pen.

John sat there for a full ten minutes, struggling to find a topic and failing. Since the only ink that reached the paper was what dripped from his pen, John furiously crumpled the paper and yanked out a couple of snippets he'd written for later, carefully avoiding the ones Rose inspired and trying to build on them. His mind felt like it was filled with cotton, and he gave up when his thoughts kept wandering back to Rose, throwing down his pen in anger and shoving everything off his desk so that his papers fluttered to the ground and his inkwell smashed all over the floorboards.

He sank onto the couch, hating himself for stumbling upon her at the bottom of that hill, for taking her home and letting himself love her even though he knew what would happen. He hadn't learned from his mistakes as a child and now he was paying the price for it— he was _nothing._ And if he couldn't write poetry anymore then he was less than nothing.

John stood up abruptly before going throughout the house and shutting all of the drapes, so that he didn't have to see anything but the dark.

* * *

Rose didn't wake to the sound of twittering birds like she usually did, nor did she feel the scratch of the wool comforter on her arms. It made it all the more real that she wasn't _home_ anymore, and with a sinking feeling in her chest Rose wrapped the too-soft duvet around her tighter and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fall back asleep. A knock on the door sounded just before Rose was about to drift back into peaceful ignorance, jolting her back to reality as somebody entered the room.

"Good morning, Lady Rose," said a woman's voice as she wheeled in a breakfast cart.

"Don't call me that," Rose replied stonily, sitting up and rumpling her hair. She took in the sight of another maid busying herself with pouring tea into a china cup. "What's your name?"

"Ida, Lady Ro— miss," she corrected quickly, pushing the tray towards Rose's bed. "Duchess Tyler said to bring you up breakfast."

"Er, thank you," said Rose, taking the cup of tea from Ida and sipping it tentatively, wishing very much that she was tasting John's ever-changing blend.

"Would you like me to throw out your gown, La— miss?"

"No!" Rose clutched at the bodice of her gown protectively, shoving herself as far from Ida as possible. She'd sooner set the estate on fire than give up one of her only ties to John.

"Then, would you like me to help you dress?" Ida asked, making Rose frown at her.

"I can dress on my own, thanks," she said a bit shortly.

As it turned out, she could _not _dress on her own, not with the hundreds of frills and bows on her gown, and the multiple underskirts, and the _corset. _If this was what was considered 'proper', then Rose had been running around London naked. It took a full hour for Ida to properly dress her, which included a light powdering on her cheeks and her hair tucked into a bonnet, and by the time Ida left the room Rose felt like a china doll. She sat at the vanity for a few moments, staring at her reflection in the mirror and trying not to cry— she looked lovely, there was no question about it, but everything was too _perfect, _too pristine and noble, like they planned to trot her out on display. John never cared about her appearance; he always told her she looked lovely regardless of what she wore or how she styled her hair, and she'd never used makeup before.

Rose swiped at her eyes hastily, angry with herself for clinging onto the thought of John— he clearly had no trouble forgetting her, since he'd already been halfway there and they hadn't even said goodbye yet. Standing up with difficulty because of her corset, she held her head high and decided that she'd forget him too.

Even if it meant forgetting all that she knew again.

* * *

He was pathetic, and he knew it.

He felt a lot like after he'd received word that his parents had died in Glasgow— hollow, stiff and unwilling to move from wherever he'd plopped himself. Food tasted like sawdust, and it was always cold, even when the fire was lit. After some number of hours of just drifting through the house like a ghost, John had a random moment of disgust at himself and determination to get the hell back to normal, so he yanked on his jacket with resolve and headed towards the door, only to lose his nerve at once when he spotted an eagle-eyed Mr. Copper stationed on his porch, as though hoping to intercept him for information. And right now, he couldn't handle the idea of having to explain to a neighbour who'd thought he was a murderer for years why his saving grace had suddenly left.

Mostly he just slept, the curtains always drawn so that he didn't have to look at Rose's things. Sometimes he didn't dream, but when he did, he always, _always_ dreamed of her.

* * *

Three days passed by and Rose found a noble's life to be _horribly_ boring. Her mother insisted that Rose be in her realm of view for the entirety of the day, but spent most of that time chattering on about the same type of gossip Rose always used to hear Mrs. Copper speak of, and constantly planned outings and balls. Rose dreaded each and every one of them— she and John hadn't figured out if Rose could dance, and Rose didn't want to find out she couldn't in a room full of stodgy strangers.

Rose wandered into the sitting room, seeing Jackie — her _mother_, she reminded herself firmly — perched on the chesterfield nearest to the fire, holding a small child who couldn't have been older than eight months. Was that her brother?

Jackie looked up, smiling at Rose in the doorway and saying, "Would you like to hold him?"

She hesitated before walking towards them, leaning down so that Jackie could place the infant in her awkward hold. Her brother had a tuft of blonde-ginger hair on his downy head and gigantic blue eyes that swivelled towards her, mouth parted in awe as they stared at each other.

"What's his name?" Rose asked quietly.

"Anthony," Jackie said, beaming at her children. "We call him Tony."

One of the servants called out to Jackie for her attention, allowing Rose a brief moment of solitude with her brother, who continued to blink at her like she was the most fascinating anomaly he'd ever seen. "Are you really my brother?" Rose whispered, rocking him slightly and looking down at him with sadness in her eyes. "I'm sorry I don't remember you." When Jackie returned, Rose handed Tony back to her and sat down with her on the couch, waiting until Jackie handed off her brother to the servant and sat down as well before speaking. "What exactly did we do here?" Rose asked her hesitantly, hoping she didn't offend her mother by letting on how boring nobility appeared.

Jackie chuckled, as if she knew full well what Rose thought, and said, "You always said being nobility was droll and uneventful." She flushed with embarrassment, until Jackie added, "I doubt very much that changed, even with your memory loss."

"Sorry," Rose mumbled, but Jackie merely patted her hand.

"You've always been different from us, love," her mother replied fondly. "Refused to wear your corsets to dinner parties, ran around the countryside in the mud instead of learning to embroider—" Rose had to force back a smile, unable to help but remember John's attempt to teach her how to sew and the gigantic mess of thread they'd had to untangle, "— making friends with the maids and the paupers. You always told me you were glad you would not have to inherit the dukedom, that you wished to leave nobility." Her mother's voice grew despondently soft, and Rose stared at her knees. "It was always different for me, love. Used to be a peasant, me— my mother was a cook in Pete's estate when we were children."

Rose gaped at her mother. "What?"

Jackie chuckled, saying, "You always loved it when I told you those stories. I don't speak nearly as eloquently as other nobles, and you always wondered why."

"How did you become a duchess?" Rose asked with interest.

"I overheard one of the guests plotting to murder the Duke— Pete's father," she explained. "They saw fit to reward me with the title of a lady. Then I married Pete," she added with a sigh, fluffing her hair and leaving Rose's brilliant smile unnoticed. "Not all of nobility marry for wealth and status, you know."

"Thank goodness," Rose mumbled, feeling warmth spread through her chest.

"Of course, that's no excuse for your behaviour," said Jackie, returning to earnestness and sending her a sharp look that she recoiled from. "Always went for walks, you. Said they 'cleared your head'— you even climbed out your window like a wild animal to get out."

That explained why she was found in the plains, far from the Powell Estate. "Why was I found wearing a pauper's gown?" Rose asked, suddenly remembering.

"We insisted. We decided that if you were to roam the city, you shouldn't do so dressed like an ample target for cutthroats."

"When John—" Rose swallowed. "When Mr. Smith took me to see the physician, they both surmised that I'd been attacked by thieves." Jackie visibly paled, lifting a hand and tilting Rose's head to the side so she could examine the fading scar leftover from her attack. "It doesn't hurt. They said it was shallow, and John—"

She stopped herself yet again from mentioning him, returning her hardened gaze to her knees. Her mother said, voice gentle, "Tell me about him, love."

"Why?" Rose said bitterly. "I shan't be seeing him again." At her mother's insistent look, she deflated at once, although the corset refused to let her slump forward like she wanted to. "What do you wish to know?"

"How old was he?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask."

Jackie pursed her lips, looking very much in the role of a disapproving mother. "Looked at least fifty to me."

"I suppose."

"Did you kiss him?" Jackie demanded. Rose flushed crimson, hiding her face in her hands, and Jackie gaped. "You did! Ooh, I ought to march down there and strike him, the horrid man! Taking advantage of my daughter when she's ill—"

"Mother," said Rose sternly, purposely calling her that to get her to stop and succeeding, for a moment. "He did not take advantage of me."

"Of course he did!" said Jackie shrilly, waving her hands like they were jewelled ring-covered windmills. "You're an innocent young woman with no memory at all and you were dependent on him! Ghastly old man, I'll bet if we hadn't arrived he would have—"

"I love him!" Rose burst out, before clapping a hand over her mouth and turning red yet again when Jackie froze, staring at her endlessly.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said at last, so forlornly it made Rose's vision blur with tears. "Really?"

She nodded, lowering her hands from her mouth to reveal her trembling lower lip. "But it doesn't matter," she cried. "He sent me away. He doesn't want me with him, even though he's got no one else and he told me everyone else in his life left him, and he sent me away anyway!"

Jackie drew her into a tight embrace, letting her daughter sob into her lap. "That's not true, love," she said gently, taking out the jewelled comb from Rose's hair so Jackie could run her fingers through it while she cried. "He looked like he would step in front of a lead bullet for you when we showed up. Honestly, do I look that dangerous? Don't answer that," she added hastily, making Rose let out an involuntary, watery laugh.

"Then why'd he send me away?" Rose whispered, sniffling.

"You said he told you everybody left him. Maybe he was frightened you were doing the same."

"I told him I didn't want to— that I wanted to stay with him."

"Some people push others away so they don't get hurt, sweetheart. He sent you away so you wouldn't do it first."

That would certainly explain how, when he'd been suspicious of Jackie and Pete, he clung to her protectively and immediately retreated when evidence arose. Feeling her chest seize up with guilt for spending the last three days hating him, Rose curled her fingers tightly around the fabric of her mother's gown and cried harder.

* * *

His bed no longer smelled like her, and at first he was angry about it, but he had no energy left to be angry anymore. John rolled over onto his side, the bed creaking from his actions, and buried his face into the pillow she'd used, eyes shut and feeling heavy, and he was just about to drift off into another brief sleep when the mattress depleted next to him and a hand glided over his shoulder. John's eyes flew open in alarm and he made to sit up quickly, but the hand pressed down gently and _her _voice said on a gentle whisper, "John, it's me."

He slumped down at once, pushing aside the spread of bliss at her return and shoving up his emotional walls. "What on Earth are you doing here, Rose?"

"You know why." He inhaled deeply, chest tightening when he breathed in her scent mixed with expensive perfume— she didn't need it. "John, look at me."

He squeezed his eyes shut for the briefest second before opening them again and sitting up, turning towards her. The drapes were still drawn and the room was dark, but he could faintly see the outline of her figure, hair beautifully coiffed and expensive pearl earrings hanging from her ears— although, he realised, she was still wearing the necklace he'd bought her. _Oh, _she looked lovely. "Why are you here?" he asked again, keeping his tone stony despite the warmth blossoming in his stomach.

"You know why," she repeated, keeping her hand on his shoulder.

"How did you get here?"

The corner of her mouth quirked up in that frustratingly endearing way. "Climbed out my bedroom window."

"Go home, Rose," John said shortly, shrugging off her hand and shoving the covers off his legs so he could stand, fully intent on marching her to the common hall until her _parents _could fetch her.

"I am home," she said earnestly, standing up as well and stepping in front of him before he had a chance to storm out of the room.

"Don't be foolish Rose," he snapped.

"Stop pushing me away, John," she snapped back, holding her head high and glaring at him.

"I'm not—"

"Yes you are."

"You can't just ignore your family, Rose."

"I never said I was going to, but I'm not going to ignore you either, not even if you want me to." Her blush shadowed her face, but she kept her eyes locked on his as she stepped forward and pressed her hand against his sternum. "I love you."

All Rose heard was a sharp inhale of astonishment before his mouth crashed onto hers; she let out a shuddering breath of relief and tossed her arms around his neck, smiling against his lips when one of his arms wove around her waist and pressed her desperately to his front as though trying to merge the two of them, and the other travelled up her back to tangle his fingers into her hair. Her comb dislodged from her locks and clattered to the floor, but they both ignored it as it skittered underneath John's armoire.

"Oh Rose," John gasped, pulling away for the briefest second before pecking another kiss on her reddened mouth, as though he couldn't stay away for too long. "I'm so sorry…"

"I know," she murmured through his kisses.

"And…" He swallowed hard. "I-I love you too."

She beamed at him, one hand sliding onto his cheek. "I know."

_Let us pen these truths, these errant facts_

_By light arising from cornsilk wax_

_Beneath the veil of untempered bliss_

_Does blossom the fact of naught amiss_

**A/N: And so ends the final independent installment in the series. I think I'm gonna cry Xl Next up is the Ageless, Timeless sequel for those smut-lovers who requested it, so keep an eye out for 'Regardless' (or just follow me :3). Thanks go out to LieselMargarite, Infinities Lover, Kathryn Hart (THANK YOU :DD) shadowneko003, New Eliza D, MirrorFlower and DarkWind, DeepBlue-sama, Miral-Romanov, an EpicGuest and a regular Guest (but still epic :3) The poem title for this chapter was from an excerpt from one of my completed poems, "This crackling stormcloud within blue palms; Its thunderous voice that whistles psalms; This floating mist perched on my finger; The last climactic note does linger." © Me :) Thanks for reading!  
**


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